All posts tagged police

Local and state police nationwide have seen a huge jump this year in military gear they’ve inherited through the 1033 program, a congressional mandate that began in the ’90s. The trend is likely to continue.

How the program works: When the U.S. Department of Defense has surplus gear — either because the military has upgraded to new gear or because it’s no longer necessary — they put it on offer for U.S. law enforcement, with the majority going to state and local agencies. Law enforcement agencies request the surplus gear — anything from helmets to machine guns to armored vehicles — through a state coordinator, who vets the request and then sends it on to Law Enforcement Support Office, which facilitates the program. The local law enforcement agencies pay for shipping but otherwise get this gear free of charge. Read More »

Indiana commemorated the deaths of two police officers last week — one in Indianapolis and one in Gary (near Chicago) — two of three police officers killed in the U.S. in July so far. (An officer was shot in Jersey City, N.J., over the weekend.)

While police killed in the line of duty have declined in the past couple of years, the outlook is grim for 2014. From January to June, 59 officers died, compared to 53 in 2013 and 49 in 2012 for the same time period, according to statistics from the Officer Down Memorial Page. Read More »

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The Wall Street Journal examines numbers in the news, business and politics. Some numbers are flat-out wrong or biased, while others are valid and help us make informed decisions. We tell the stories behind the stats in occasional updates on this blog.